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Contributed photo San Angelo musician Jay Dirks, who recorded a song dedicated to police officers shot in Dallas, has a couple of local performances planned in the coming week.

San Angelo's Jay Dirks watched helplessly as news reporters said five Dallas police officers were gunned down and another nine injured by a sniper July 7 as they monitored a peace rally.

Seeking release, the accomplished musician — also a civilian cop employed by Goodfellow Air Force Base — picked up his guitar as the lyrics and melody for a heartbreaking country ballad,'Our Hearts Bleed Blue,' quickly flowed from his heart.

'I already had the six songs picked for my EP; that's all I could afford,' Dirks said. 'But I'm in that brotherhood and it was happening. I realized it needed to go on there.'

It wasn't an easy decision. Dirks didn't want to give people the impression that he was trying to cash in on the Dallas tragedy. After much thought, he decided to donate all proceeds from the song, his record's first single, to the Texas Fallen Officers Foundation. The nonprofit organization provides financial assistance to officers who have been critically injured while on duty.

Law enforcement officers and Texas radio have embraced the song, which appears on Dirks' 'EP 2,' released in late September. 'Our Hearts Bleed Blue' is also special to Dirks because he performs it as a duet with his wife, Kristen Morgan Dirks.

Dirks will perform at Main St. Saloon on Friday and at Peepsi's BBQ on Oct. 20.

A New York native, Dirks moved to Texas with his mother when he was in sixth grade. He briefly returned to New York, where he learned to play guitar, then returned to Texas for his junior and senior years of high school.

'I went into the Army as soon as I graduated,' said Dirks, who served stints in South Korea and Iraq from 2002-03. But even in the Army he was playing music and making plans with old friends about forming a band upon his discharge.

'I got the band started before I got out,' said Dirks, who didn't waste a moment hopping on stage after his discharge. 'We were playing all over Texas — Austin, Waco, New Braunfels — we did well for a while.'

Eventually the band hit a creative wall and Dirks found himself as the lead singer of an already established band called 3 Ring Rodeo. The group was just preparing to record a new album.

Financial challenges prompted Dirks to move to the Dallas, and he eventually enrolled in Austin Community College, where he earned his criminal justice degree during the day. At night he would perform acoustic shows at various venues.

He relocated to Mississippi after a friend helped him find a job as a police officer, then moved back to Texas after three years.

'I had started a new band in Mississippi and we even recorded our first EP,' Dirks said. 'I had to tell them I was moving — which was hard, but I missed the Texas music scene.'

He was hired at Goodfellow in 2013 and took a break from music to concentrate on his job and his wife and to work on his songwriting. By the time he re-emerged this past spring he had a collection of more than 900 songs.

'I had millions of unfinished songs that I wanted to finish,' he said. 'But I was always doing other things.'

The hard part was determining which songs he would record for his second EP. He used several criteria to whittle down his choices.

'A lot of people just sing songs,' he said. 'My songs are written about things that happen to me. I have to have certain experiences to create a song.'

The new EP includes 'True Love,' a midtempo song about a couple watching TV and imagining they are the characters on the screen. 'On Your Mind' is a haunting blues number about lost love; its raw, unflinching anguish leave the listener feeling like they've been punched in the gut.

Other highlights include 'True Story,' a midtempo song culled from Dirks' past when he was 'head over heels' in love with someone who he eventually realized was only 'playing mind games' and never really cared about him.

Dirks is quick to note the irony of the dual life he lives. As a police officer he's been trained to be emotionally detached, a personality trait that pops up often in his personal life. Dirks the musician, on the other hand, is brutally honest about his feelings and emotions.

'My emotions come out in my songs,' Dirks said. 'I funnel it out through pencil and paper.

'My wife always says to me, 'Why can't you act like that when you're hurting?'

'I don't know. We all hurt differently.'

IF YOU GOWhat: Jay Dirks performsWhen: 8 p.m. FridayWhere: Main St. Saloon, 26 N. Main St.Cost: No cover